The Carlisle Board of Health (BOH) proposal for a town center sewer system scares me to death. I expect this system to destroy the nature of the town by allowing multifamily housing and high rise development in the town. Once a private dwelling is hooked up, there will be no basis for limiting the owner to a two-acre lot and we shall find many lots split into quarter-acre units or denser development. The BOH has already mentioned the addition of a dozen apartments to the Village Court. Why stop there? 120 units could be added by making it a ten-story high rise.

The current wastewater treatment facility was built in 2006 to replace a system where wastewater was accumulated and periodically pumped into trucks and taken to a wastewater treatment facility, out of town. This is very similar to what we are currently doing at the Transfer Station with a different refuse. At the time, we were spending $10 to $15,000 a year for a private firm to truck out the wastewater. The proposed wastewater treatment facility was expected to cost $50K a year. Now it is costing us $70K a year, according to the Mosquito. This is a 40% increase in four years. I was one of the few at Town Meeting opposed to this expenditure, but the town was told that it was “mandated” by the state so the expenditure was approved. Now we are asked to increase the cost of the system and told it will be “mandated” at least at the library.

Every household in town has a private sewer system. The company that pumps my system, periodically, tells me it should be done every three years but is not yet mandated by the state. This company pays a fee at a dumping site (out of town) to dispose of my refuse. If the BOH is looking for more refuse to process at the wastewater treatment facility, it could allow these private companies to dump their Carlisle refuse at the facility and collect a fee for each truckload. Economically this could bring down the cost of the wastewater treatment facility and use some of the excess capacity.

Edward Bing

Old East Street

Cheers for Minuteman High School

To the Editor:

Over the past two years, I’ve worked on a variety of projects for non-profit groups that involve publicity. A friend suggested I check with Dan Vardaro, Director of the Graphic Communications Department at Minuteman Career & Technical High School (MCTHS).

The name, Graphic Communications rather than Print Shop, is a clue to what this public school department can provide – state of the art graphics and reproduction services that bear little resemblance to former (and some current) high school print shops. I have consistently received professional and courteous care and expert advice and guidance along with high quality prints and photo copying at MCTHS. All this and for the most reasonable cost in the area.

In a recent conversation about the development of the program, Mr. Vardaro, a 30-year teaching veteran, talked about the vision of creating as authentic and representative an experience as possible to prepare students adequately for the increasingly technical, digitized world we live in. The department welcomes work from non-profit organizations as a way of giving students important, real world experience.

In an age when we hear so many negatives about public education, the good work being done can be overlooked. So here are three, well deserved cheers for Minuteman Career & Technical High School (MCTHS)!

Launa Zimmaro

Lowell Street

Apology

The Mosquito regrets that a Letter to the Editor in support of Jon Golnick for U.S. Representative was not included in last week’s edition. We work hard to maintain professional standards, but in our efforts to put out a paper after the long Labor Day weekend, we inadvertently failed to include the letter.